Dogmatism Scale Research Articles

Correlations of Dogmatism and Internal-External Factor Scales

For 50 college students a small but significant correlation (.26) obtained between factor scores for two short-form scales, Rotter's I-E scale and a dogmatism scale.

Developmental Relationship between Formal and Dogmatic Reasoning

In keeping with Piagetian theory, objective social reasoning seems to require the onset of formal operations ( 1 ) . However, the relationship between one form of social reaoning, e.g., open-mindedness ( 2 ) , and the highest stage of cognitive development, e.g., formal reasoning, is a much neglected area of research. This is true in spite of the fact that they both exemplify a systematic structure or network of formalized principles and emphasize structure over content. A relationship seems reasonable since openminded thinking depends on the interconnectedness of psychological systems as does formal reasoning, whereas closed-minded thinking, i.e., dogmatism, represents a compartmentalization, isolation, or incompleteness of these systems as in non-formal thinking. To examine the possible relationship between formal and open-minded reasoning, Rokeach's 40-item Dogmatism Scale (Form E. 1960) was administered concurrently with the How is your Logic? test (Form B, 1976)' to 59 college students at the University of Toledo and 420 students in Grades 7 through 12 at Lake Local Schools, Toledo, Ohio. The Dogmatism Scale required students to indicate their opinions about social and personal issues on a six-point Likert scale and the Logic test required students to construct and explain answers to 13 questions involving the mental operations of seriation, combinatorial reasoning, permutations, implication, and proportionally. The reliability coefficient ranged from .68 to .93 for the Dogmatism Scale ( 2 ) , and .71 €or this administration of the Logic test (W. M. Gray, formal communication, May, 1979). A one-way analysis of variance showed a significant difference across grade levels for both the Dogmatism and the Logic scores (Pa . r~ = 18.3, and P = 18.9, ps < .001, respectively) as well as for just the formal reasoning items of the Logic test (P = 19.5, p < .001). Mean scores at the highest grade, i.e., college, were 56.9 ( 8 1 maximum) on the Logic test and -29 ( 120 maximum) on the Dogmatism scale. The Dogmatism scores were significantly correlated but only at a low level with the Logic scores (M.30, p < .001) and also with the formal reasoning scores (-0.27, p < .001), indicating a reduction in closed-mindedness aod improvement in formal reasoning with increased age. At each grade, however, Dogmatism scores were significantly ( p < .05) and negatively correlated with both Logic and formal reasoning scores only at Grades 8, 9, and 12. Further, scores grouped as homogeneous subtests (using a Scheffk multiple-range test) indicated different patterns of age-related changes for the Dogmatism and formal reasoning measures. The present results indicate chat fully formal reasoning as well as openmindedness is not necessarily an eventuality even by college. Also, the pattern of scores on measures of both formal and dogmatic reasoning is not necessarily parallel at any particular grade nor for the age-related improvement that occurs across all grades. Obviously, further research is needed.

Dogmatic thinking and communication skills of student-physicians.

Medical students' performance on Carkhuff's Communication and Discrimination Indexes improved significantly as a result of a 9-wk. training program. However, students who performed better on these measures in relation to their peers were not more open-minded as measured by Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale.

The Influence of Subcultural and Personality Factors on Consumer Acculturation

This paper explores the potential role of subcultural (religious) and personality (Rockeach Dogmatism Scale) characteristics in explaining differences in the extent of consumer acculturation. The survey results suggest that for a complex and heterogeneous nation like Nigeria, there are significant within-nation differences that may influence consumer acculturation. Implications and suggestions for future cross-cultural consumer research taking an acculturation perspective are indicated.

Dogmatism and Confidence as Related Factors in Evaluation of New Products

This study investigated the possible relationship between dogmatism and confidence. Confidence is related to the amount of information needed to make a decision. Rokeach's theories concerning dogmatism suggest that, because they resist new information, highly dogmatic individuals will report that they are more confident than persons low in dogmatism in their ability to evaluate a new product. 70 undergraduates were asked to assess their confidence in their ability to evaluate a new product and to complete the Troldahl and Powell Short-form Dogmatism Scale. As hypothesized, 15 subjects high in dogmatism reported that they were more confident than those ( n = 16) low in dogmatism.

Dogmatism Scores of Polytechnic Teachers in South India

Incidental to a curriculum evaluation project in south India, polytechnic lecturers obtained extraordinarily high scores on Rokeach's dogmatism scale. It is hypothesized that this may be related to the revered position of teachers in India.

Dogmatism and Attained Educational Levels of Managers in an Agri-Product Industry: A Field Study

Items, means, and standard deviations for a short dogmatism scale are reported.

Critical Thinking and Belief in the Paranormal

The critical thinking ability of 13 believers and 13 nonbelievers in paranormal phenomena was examined in two studies. In the first study, believers and skeptics were given Watson and Glaser's (1964) Critical Thinking Appraisal Scale as well as Trodahl and Powell's (1965) Dogmatism Scale. Skeptics showed a significantly higher level of critical thinking ability than believers and were significantly less dogmatic than believers. A second study was carried out to evaluate the critical thinking ability of believers and skeptics on a task dealing with the paranormal. 18 believers and 17 skeptics were asked to evaluate critically either a research article on a paranormal phenomenon (psychokinesis) or an almost identical article on a nonparanormal phenomenon (pain tolerance). It was anticipated that believers would show a bias in favor of the paranormal article; however, results indicated that believers and nonbelievers were equally critical of the paranormal article.

Further Validation of the Ethical Reasoning Inventory

To assess its utility with high school subjects and further assess its construct validity, the Ethical Reasoning Inventory was administered to two student samples. 78 high school boys received both the Ethical Reasoning Inventory and the Kohlberg Moral Judgment Interview while 31 male and 38 female college students were given the inventory along with the Short-form Dogmatism Scale. The results indicate that the Ethical Reasoning Inventory does possess construct validity, is able to discriminate high school from college groups, and can be used with subjects at least as young as 14 yr. old.

Belief Polarity: a Useful Construct for Studies of Prejudice

A construct named "belief polarity" was introduced as a plausible index of racial prejudice. Pilot studies were described in which an instrument to measure belief polarity (the Belief Polarity Scale) was developed and validated. This instrument and the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale were administered to 76 educators of mixed racial background prior to an interracial human relations workshop. Several days following the conclusion of this two-week conference, the Belief Polarity Scale was again administered. Analysis of variance revealed that polarity scores discriminated markedly by race and that direction and magnitude of pre- to posttest change in polarity was a function of pretest dogmatism.

Effects of dogmatism on state anxiety during the analysis and synthesis of new beliefs.

Investigated the concept of dogmatism as a defense mechanism and the role of threat in the synthesis of new beliefs by examining the effects of dogmatism on changes in state anxiety (A-State) during the analysis and synthesis of new beliefs. Sixty female college students were selected on the basis of extreme scores on the Dogmatism Scale and the trait anxiety (A-Trait) scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to work on a task requiring the analysis and synthesis of new beliefs. In support of Rokeach's theory, high dogmatics displayed no change in A-State from the analysis to the synthesis period of the task, while low dogmatics exhibited a significant decline in A-State between the two periods. The clinical implications of these findings were discussed in terms of the role of dogmatism in the processing of personality interpretations and test feedback.

Is the Dogmatism Scale Irreversible?

A review of various attempts to produce balanced versions of the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale (‘D’ scale) shows that the highest positive-negative correlation obtained on a general population sample was-0,32. This was obtained with the Ray (1974a) ‘BD’ Scale Mark 11. An attempt to improve on this figure was made by administering only the best eight items of this scale to a community sample of 87 Sydney people. The positive-negative correlation obtained was-0,37. It was pointed out that Rorer's (1965) work showed only that there was no such thing as a general tendency to acquiesce. It did not rule out acquiescence as a response to ambiquity (Peabody 1966). Balanced scales are therefore still necessary. It was concluded that the ‘D’ Scale may be inherently and unacceptably ambiguous.

Dogmatism and Attained Educational Level: A Field Study

A short form of Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale was administered to 445 managers in an agri-product industry. The managers represented four levels of education. Controlling for the possible effects of age, organizational level, function, years in present position, years with present company, years as a manager, years of full-time work experience, staff-line role, span of control, order of birth, and family size, a significant inverse relationship was found between educational attainment and dogmatism. The results point to the desirability of considering the relationship between education and personality structure (dogmatism) in future research.

The Effects of Social Desirability, Intelligence, and Milieu on an American Validation of the Conservatism Scale.

The purpose of this investigation was to validate the Conservatism Scale (C-scale) with American Ss, and in the process, test the effects of conservative milieu, dogmatism, social desirability, and intelligence on C-scale responses. It was expected that the C-scale would be related to both dogmatism and intelligence, but not to social desirability. Ninety-four university students from the southern United States were administered the Conservatism, Rokeach's Dogmatism, Crowne-Marlowe's Social Desirability, and Raven's IQ scales. The results indicate that the C-scale is not contaminated by a social desirability response set. Significant positive correlations were obtained with the dogmatism scale, while intelligence was negatively related in a small, though significant way with conservatism. These results are discussed in terms of test format and mediation processes. That the C-scale was administered in a conservative culture had no effect on the pattern of C-scale responses, and there was no evidence that the expression of social attitudes was in any way divorced from underlying personality structure. The results indicate that the C-scale is a reliable and valid measure and can be satisfactorily used with American samples.

Correlations between Standard English and Dialectical Spanish Versions of Five Personality Scales

Although there have been increased attempts to provide bilingual, bicultural mental health services to Spanish-speaking residents of major Southwestern cities, little effort has been directed toward the development and testing of Spanish versions of easily administered personality scales for use in assessment, treatment, and evaluation. The Spanish versions of the five tests were developed for use as a part of a project involving native Spanish-speaking clients at the Austin Child Guidance Clinic. Tests selected for the project included the Rational Behavior Inventory that provides an index of rational beliefs based on 37 items scored on a five-point Likert scale (2, 3, 4) . Other scales included a five-item Anomia scale developed by Srole; a 10-item Self-esteem scale developed by Rosenberg; a 10-item Dogmatism scale developed by Schulze; and a 4-item Authoritarianism scale developed by Lane ( 1 ) . A preliminary version of each scale was developed by integrating independently developed stimulus items constructed by rwo native bilingual social work students of Mexican descent. The preliminary items were then independently reviewed by two native bilingual social workers of Mexican descent for choice of words, sentence construction, and verbal flow. The final items were then selected jointly by the social work professionals. Thirty-two native bilingual students of Mexican descent from four sections of a lower division Mexican American studies class at the University of Texas at Austin completed both the Spanish and English versions of the test. Half of the students first complered the English version followed by the Spanish version of the test, and the others completed the test in the opposite order. Correlation coefficients computed for the English and Spanish versions of each test were all significant ( p < .DO1 ) . Values of the correlations included: Rational Behavior Inventory (.93 ) , Self-esteem scale ( .91), Anomia scale (.97 ) , Authoritarianism scale (.77), and the Dogmatism scale ( .88). Differences between the means of the English and Spanish versions of all five tests were analyzed using t test. Means and standard deviations for the English and Spanish versions, respectively, were: Rational Behavior Inventory (22.78 and 5.33; 23.34 and 5.63), Self-esteem scale (8.08 and 2.20; 7.83 and 2.41), Anomia scale (2.31 and 1.51; 2.17 and 1.47), Authoritarianism scale (2.00 and 1.16; 1.93 and 1.24), and Dogmatism scale (4.69 and 1.89; 4.86 and 2.10). A significant difference between mean scores was found only for the Anomia scale ( p < .05). The difference between the mean scores on the English and Spanish versions of the Anomia scale were small but significant; SDs were small. These results provide preliminary support for use of the Spanish dialectical versions of the four scales.

Selective Exposure as a Function of Dogmatism and Incentive.

It was hypothesized that Ss with high scores on Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale would be less willing than low scorers to read material incongruent with their beliefs but that instructions that their beliefs would be challenged would lead Ss to read incongruent material. Fifty-six college students, predominantly male, studying engineering, who had to participate in a liberal studies program, were presented with a questionnaire to elicit their beliefs. The 48 Ss who were opposed to the program were then given the opportunity to select articles to read, related to the program. Half of the Ss were told they would later be called to an interview to enlarge on their opinion. The results indicated that incentive did not have a significant influence on the discrepancy between opinion and the material selected, but high dogmatism Ss were significantly (p < .05) less likely to choose discrepant material than were low dogmatism Ss.

Validation Testing of the Rational Behavior Inventory

Two hundred twenty-two students at Michigan State University completed a questionnaire including the Rational Behavior Inventory (RBI), the Srole Anomia scale, Lane's Authoritarianism scale, a ten-item Dogmatism scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale— each of the last four scales having been described by Robinson and Shaver (1969). Students in this stratified sample were randomly selected from the student telephone directory. The validity of the RBI was examined by testing hypothesized relationships between scores on the RBI and scores on each of the other four personality measures, class standing, and age. Support for the validity of the RBI was indicated by significant associations in the predicted direction between the RBI index and each of the four personality measures. Ten of the eleven factors of the RBI were correlated significantly in the predicted direction with two or more of these personality measures. The correlations between the RBI index and age and between the RBI index and class standing of the respondents were in the predicted direction, but not statistically significant.

A Canonical Analysis of Personality Characteristics, Personal and Teaching Practices Beliefs, and Dogmatism of Beginning Teacher Education Students

The relationships between scores on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF), the Brown Personal Beliefs and Teaching Practices Inventories, and the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale for 191 female, beginning teacher education students were investigated using canonical and simple correlation analyses. A significant canonical correlation of .51 was established between these measures, with factors M (Practical vs. Imaginative), and Q1 (Conservative vs. Experimenting) of the 16 PF and total scores on the Brown inventories accounting for the multivariate correlation. Teacher education students who indicate high agreement with Dewey’s philosophy on the Brown instruments appear to also score high on the imagination and experimentation factors of the 16 PF. An additional finding of importance was the absence of significant relationships between the 16 PF and the Rokeach Dogmatism Scale.

Attitudes toward Female Professors: A Scale with Some Data on its Reliability and Validity

The literature shows that there are no instruments available which measure specific or localized aspects of sexism, e.g., in the professions. As available scales measure sexism in general, that is, general attitudes toward women and women's rights, a Likert-type scale was developed to measure attitudes toward women as university professors. The split-half reliability coefficient is 0.88. The test-retest reliability coefficient determined over a 5-wk. period is 0.95. Its validity, when compared with subjects' level of general authoritarianism (measured by Rokeach's Dogmatism Scale) is —0.63, indicating that subjects who hold favorable attitudes toward women professors are also low in dogmatism. This is consistent with previous findings on the relationship between dogmatism and attitudes toward women. Differences in sex and major field of study are also reported. The utility of this scale in studies of sexist attitudes toward women professors is discussed.

Status Threat and Group Dogmatism

Experimentally composed 5-member groups completed an initial problemsolving exercise. In the status-threat condition, members then received negative evaluative feedback regarding their group performance. In the control condition, members received relatively favorable feedback. Groups then discussed and reached consensual judgments on a set of Dogmatism Scale items. As hypothesized, the groups subjected to status threat adopted significantly more dogmatic beliefs than groups in the control condition. In addition, it was found that group dogmatism scores were consistently lower than the average individual pretreatment dogmatism scores within the group, suggesting that the groups tended to be more flexible than their component members.